The Recovering Obsessivehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 21:49:15 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngThe Recovering Obsessivehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com
The Middle East Feast Processhttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/the-middle-east-feast-process/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/the-middle-east-feast-process/#respondFri, 22 Jul 2011 04:40:09 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=135]]>I am really glad that I did not post the thing that I did not post. If you would like to see it, please let me know and I will be sure to never show you or anybody else.

On the tail end of the first part of my Subway diet, I look forward to eating processed meats and other unidentifiable, edible treats that will have been provided for me by United Airlines®. There is also a fifty percent chance (pending coin flip) that I will be riding first class, which is advertised as being not a Subway® restaurant. Though my first non-Subway® will decidedly be terrible, it still has the advantage of not being a Subway® sandwich. I think that the knowledge that the thing I’m eating is not from Subway® will carry my enjoyment for at least half of the meal. The fact that it probably will be a sandwich is troubling. Am I going to dislike sandwiches for the rest of my life? Will I be appalled by sliced meats and the choice to either have or to not have banana peppers? Will Jared Fogle, who currently mocks me in my own dreams, found a cult forcing its members to kill themselves slowly by having their life sucked out by the eventual realization that life is about more than bland turkey sandwiches? It’s also about bacon.

I think that my reinstatement into food will be a pleasant experience. I am going to Israel on Sunday. I was excited about the prospect of eating different foods until Eran told me that there is a twenty-four-hour Subway® near his house in Israel. I cannot escape it. God is punishing me for all of the times I didn’t use my turn signal. That is actually a big deal to God. I feel like Fox Mulder walking into the FBI building while actually digging deeper into the cave where he found psychedelic mushrooms. That was a really specific reference. It also has nothing to do with anything I have ever said.

Though I ultimately did have an accidental date for the twenty-five pound challenge, the second phase of my diet begins August 3. Maybe I won’t advertise the new challenge and on the day of the event will get another text from a girl I’ve never met. Those are the best kinds.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/the-middle-east-feast-process/feed/0moldyboomulderShareQuadruple Bypasshttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/quadruple-bypass/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/quadruple-bypass/#respondFri, 08 Jul 2011 03:44:37 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=119]]>I had an epiphany while getting into bed about three weeks ago. Following is the evolution of an idea:

1. I am overweight.

2. I want to weigh less.

3. Eating food makes me weigh more.

4. I will not eat food.

I rigorously stuck to that strategy until late afternoon the next morning. My original plan was set for an extremely short period of time. I hadn’t really thought this out for the span of more than a third of a day. My newer revised idea was to eat as little as possible for the next month. This plan is really easy to say and to think. It is somewhat more difficult de facto; like communism or genocide. I had not accounted for hunger or the murderous rage that it accompanies. Therefore, I decided to eat two 6 inch sandwiches a day from Subway® along with a bag of baked potato chips with each meal.

I am now just over three weeks into figure modification. Weight loss doesn’t look exactly how I thought it would. For example, though now 40 pounds lighter, my stomach looks just as huge and hairy as it ever did. This must be what anorexia is. People comment on how much better I look, but I see the same fat stomach. I am a sixteen-year-old girl with the breasts of someone whose breasts looked like that of a sixteen-year-old girl a little while ago. I just don’t look how I imagined I would look at this weight, which is not anything close to this. This is a sign that I should continue my strict regimen of never not wearing a shirt. This is of course impossible in the shower, which is why my eyes stay closed whenever I clean myself. That might explain lifelong loneliness and the entire left side of my body constantly smelling like pork.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/quadruple-bypass/feed/0moldybooburgerShareCourtney Lovehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/courtney-love/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/courtney-love/#respondTue, 14 Jun 2011 05:35:27 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=108]]>I had a crush on a girl in the eleventh grade. I was also in the eleventh grade. I could have said ‘junior’ just now but that would have nullified that joke I used to say where I imply that I was in eleventh grade and then confirm it in a separate sentence. I had a crush on a girl junior year of high school. She was overweight, and I wasn’t. If someone told me that the roles would be switched in ten years, I wouldn’t have bought her those weight-loss pills, nor enlightened her about the wonders of bulimia.

I had a crush on a girl in 2001. I didn’t actually buy her weight-loss pills. I did buy her Valentine’s gifts and stuff. I remember going to Walgreen’s at eleven pm the night before Valentine’s Day and frantically looking for any candy left to validate my friendships with people who up to the next day had never talked to me. I bought her chocolate, which, in retrospect, was probably not the best gift for an overweight person. In my defense, there is no Valentine’s Day Asparagus, yet. Though in retro-retrospect, it didn’t really matter because she’s skinny now. However, of course, her LDL cholesterol level could still be high. Mine could too. Does pure frosting have LDL in it? If not, why?

So I bought her things, even though she told me several times that another girl in class liked me. This, however, was proven to be untrue after I confronted her about it and she laughed until 2009. I liked the other girl anyway. I tried to be charming. We ended up at the same college, and I visited her several times freshman year, even buying her gifts when she was sick. Years later (last week) I wrote her after years of not talking, and asked her out in a kind of no-really-asking-her-out horrible way. She did not respond. I would have been okay with that. She is super pretty and is probably busy with work/kids/jury duty. But then I remembered high school and it seemed like I at least deserved a response. That’s it.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/courtney-love/feed/0moldyboocourtneyIf Your Brother was Murdered in Algeria Today, DO NOT GO TO WORKhttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/if-your-brother-was-murdered-in-algeria-today-do-not-go-to-work/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/if-your-brother-was-murdered-in-algeria-today-do-not-go-to-work/#respondWed, 13 Apr 2011 05:21:30 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=95]]>As I pulled my number, I knew that the building of which I was inside of would be my dwelling for the next 7-29 hours. Everyone knows that nobody gets to leave after only pulling one number. You pull one number, wait half an hour, and then go to a cubicle where an angry woman berates you for being stupid and tells you that you picked from the wrong set of numbers.

So you pick a second number, again knowing that there are many numbers that are still to be picked before you can exit into the smog-filled-devoid-of-any-happiness abyss of Downtown Houston. You sit back down with your enormous rolled-up architectural plans and search for a comfortable position, but the giant scroll is not interested in your comfort. So you get called back, and this time a man berates you for being stupid and tells you that you, once again, picked from the wrong set of numbers.

You go back and pick a third number. This time you wait an entire hour as the rolled up plans carve a dent into your upper right leg. This time, a kind man greets you and you go back to his office. It looks like he is a genuinely friendly person, but he seems distressed. You ignore that as you angrily tell him that all you want to do is pay the impact fee. He wipes his brow and takes a long, deep breath. Then you put all of your anger towards the first two people onto him. “Look”, I say unsympathetically. “My boss said that she spoke to you yesterday, and she said that I don’t need a letter in order to pay the impact fee for this guard house. I have a blank check with me. Just give me a number and I will write that number on the check.” He sighs again. “I did not even talk to her about this guard house yesterday,” he says.

Then, he puts his head in his hands and tells me that his brother was murdered in Algeria earlier that day. Suddenly, my day does not seem so bad. I feel really bad and don’t know what to say. “I’m really sorry.” He then goes back to talking to me about the impact fee. This man is devoted to his job. Not only does he immediately continue working, he continues working at what has to be the worst job in America. You can’t do this. You shouldn’t be here. Still, his brother’s tragic death doesn’t fully placate my misdirected anger. “Yeah, can I please god just pay the impact fee? I’m hungry.”

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/if-your-brother-was-murdered-in-algeria-today-do-not-go-to-work/feed/0moldyboojobYou Don’t Know Mehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/you-dont-know-me/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/you-dont-know-me/#respondMon, 28 Mar 2011 09:34:56 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=85]]>I was scanning the “Why Aren’t You Guys Friends?” section on Facebook, where Facebook tries to tell you that you are actually friends with people that you aren’t Facebook friends with, and the song You Don’t Know Me by Ben Folds came in on my headphones. I figured that that anecdotal coincidence was funny enough to write a blog post on.

It wasn’t funny or interesting enough. I got two sentences in when I realized that I could not write a full post on this hilarious incident that happened to me all by myself. So I’m still browsing the “Why Do These People Hate You?” section on Facebook, and I came across a few names that made me think. I found three people on there that I could have sworn were Facebook friends with me, but must have unfriended me.

I’m actually glad that the first of the three people I found on the “What Happened?” section of Facebook supposedly unfriended me. I never liked her. I don’t think we have ever talked, though. Anyway, we never had any kind of emotional connection, and now she’s an underwear model? No. Thank you for unfriending me. Seeing your face only reminds me of your face from junior high school, except it now has a two-piece swimsuit under it. After watching a three-hour marathon of To Catch A Predator, I don’t know how to feel.

The second person on the “So Do You Guys Hate Each Other?” section of Facebook was also a surprise. Then I realized that we may have never been Facebook friends in the first place. Either way, I don’t care at all.

The third person I found on the “All Of These People Wouldn’t Care if You Died” section of Facebook made me really sad. We kind of knew each other a very long time ago. And then we kind of knew each other again. And then I made several mistakes and she definitely does not ever want to see me again. We actually caught up via Facebook in 2004 when Facebook first came out. We talked on the phone once. After that, not only did I never call her again, but I also asked out her roommate on a date years later. I’m really sorry. If it helps (and you are actually reading this) the date was horrible, as you probably know, and I should have spent all of my courage asking to hang out with you. Although you definitely would have said no, I would have at least felt better about this. But now you will probably hate me for the rest of your life.

Only this generation, with its finite knowledge of Facebook’s fragile friendships, really knows how bad it hurts when Facebook unfriends them.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/you-dont-know-me/feed/0moldyboosubwayThe AIDSviatorhttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-aidsviator/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-aidsviator/#respondFri, 25 Mar 2011 04:03:59 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=77]]>After roughly 140 posts about virtually nothing, I have nothing more to say. I was at about post number 71 or 74 of my last blog when I realized that my material was wearing thin. You can only say so much about childhood humiliations that have bloomed into flowers of regressive manhood so many times, and I said those things so many times. Some people have real problems like being homeless, having no arms, being homeless and having no arms, or being dead. These people have some good stuff to write. However, it would be progressively harder for them to write following the order that I just listed.

A Howard Hughes autobiography would be/is fascinating. Though we share a few similarities such as our birthplace and the fact that we always urinate in glass milk bottles, we also both have experienced OCD and wear tissue boxes as shoes. We both also like being in airplanes. He liked that so much, in fact, that he revolutionized modern commercial airline travel. I like it so much that whenever I feel turbulence, I scan the plane to see the group of people that I will be living with on a furtive island. Don’t worry pilot, though you will die almost immediately, you will be resurrected by another promising show that turns out to be terrible that is Heroes.

The Aviator is easily one of my all-time favorite movies. I first saw it by myself in a theater near downtown Boston. I had coincidentally spent the previous one and a half days by myself in a hotel room watching Phone Booth on repeat as I obsessed over the fact that I forgot to bring my camera with me. I know you reminded me, but I didn’t listen. I finally made it out of my depressed haze and into a movie theater where I was lucky enough to watch the story of how a man’s life was destroyed by obsessive-compulsive disorder. That really was the only movie ever that would have made me more depressed, and it did. Martin Scorcese’s next film, which will center on the destruction of an entire city, killing some 20,000 people, will premiere in Tokyo soon. Someone with OCD accidentally watching a movie about how OCD ruined a man’s life is akin to somebody with AIDS watching Philadelphia and then getting shot by a man with a gun with a prescription on how to cure AIDS taped to the bullet. It is exactly like that. By the way, the cure for AIDS? Milk. Drink a lot of milk.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-aidsviator/feed/0moldybooreillyChange We Can Ritualizehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/change-we-can-ritualize/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/change-we-can-ritualize/#respondWed, 16 Mar 2011 04:49:45 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=66]]>I started my original blog right before the election. Though I did not know who I could vote for, I took comfort in the fact that I was technically ineligible as well as marginally intelligible. I was seventeen, I think, and my blog, which resided at www.livejournal.com/users/iwillstaythisskinnyfortherestofmylife, was not mature enough to handle such subjects.

Then I saw it: George W.Bush’s speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. I don’t know if it was due to several years of inadvertently breathing toxic air that, for some reason, had its highest concentration in my bedroom, or years of Republicanism that I had been gingerly force-fed by my good-intentioned family, but the speech was amazing. I loved it. I don’t remember it very clearly, but I’m pretty sure that he was wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a lasso, and was on a horse which he was placed upon by compulsory imperialism disguised as manifest destiny. I didn’t know the difference between conservatism and liberalism, and this speech did not help define either.

George W. Bush was eventually elected. And then elected again. His reign over the entire world happened to coincide with the darkest period of my life. I don’t want to compare any personal experiences to, say, 9/11, but my life was pretty great before that day. After that day, my OCD became more of a tangible thing. I started obsessing over the smallest things. I did not care that the Western World was crumbling under the weight of an oppressive, intrusive government. I cared that I knew exactly how many steps it took to walk across the main hallway of my high school. The worse the world got, the worse my condition got. There were little moments of joy. For example, when we captured Saddam Hussein, I think I got an ‘A’ on a Spanish test. When Michael Phelps won his first gold medal, I realized that I was never enrolled in any type of Spanish class.

For the 2008 election, I was excited. I was so excited (unbelievably bored) that I started another blog that would chronicle my rise from regression. I even used the term ‘progressive’ in its title. It was supposed to narrate how I would eventually overcome eight years of setbacks. Instead, it was more a I-don’t-yet-realize-that-literally-anybody-can-read-this-why-did-I-just-say-that. It was graphic. After two and a half years of illustrating all of my misfortunes, I trashed it and started this one. In 2012, let’s vote in a president that that I don’t watch on TV while performing nonsensical rituals that prevent me from getting a hardening-of-the-skin disorder that I saw in a made-for-TV movie in 1997.

When I was little, my little sister, who, at the time, was seven years younger than I was, wrote a letter to President Clinton. I was amazed that she got a quick response from the White House. It didn’t exactly address any of the issues that she brought up. Nor did it mention her by name. Nor was it written in crayon to keep the consistency of the correspondence. However, it did have President Clinton’s name on it, so I knew that he read it.

I probably will not be reading the content of the letter that you probably are not going to write me. I’ll read as much of the letter that you put time into writing. I want the date at the top. Next, I would like for you to express exactly whom you are addressing. Then, I would like for the body to be written using words and punctuation. After that, I would like your name and some sort of presidential seal. Finally, and most importantly, I would like for you to attach a picture of you walking a pig. If the letter part is too much, you can simply send me the picture of you walking a pig.

Once I receive the photo of the pig-walking, you can be sure that you might have my vote in 2012. Of course, that will depend on your performance until then, as well as the competency of your campaign. Also, though I am not writing any other candidate, if, for example, Sarah Palin were to send me a photo of her walking a pig, the ante will have then been upped. The only way to top that would be for you to send me a picture of you walking two pigs. I am a Democrat, but anything can happen before the next election. Though the pig-walking picture will not guarantee a vote from me, it sure would be a step in the right direction.

This could also be used to appeal to certain constituents. For example, observant Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. Also, the First Lady has been giving a lot of her attention to improving the health of America’s children. What better way to illustrate this than by showing that you not only possess the ability to walk, but you also maintain the capability to not eat pigs while simultaneously walking them. Of course, I do not want the pork industry to be hurt by this. That is why I will now tell you how much I enjoy bacon. I enjoy bacon.

I realize that I am not actually sending you anything. I am just posting this in my blog. However, you know where to find me. My email address is balkin.jeremy@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Jeremy

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/appeal-to-obama/feed/0moldybooShareBait Car: The Downfall of Our Empirehttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/bait-car-the-downfall-of-our-empire/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/bait-car-the-downfall-of-our-empire/#commentsTue, 08 Mar 2011 03:49:18 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=51]]>I recently found out something that most people my age have known for years: late nights on Sundays is the best time to watch television. On MSNBC, where you would usually see reruns of Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow, you get real journalism: Chris Hansen. It’s just To Catch a Predator for hours. It’s usually followed and preceded by Lockup, where they just film people in prisons. On truTV, which used to be CourtTV(?), which used to be an untelevised courtroom, you get the greatest television show of all time: Bait Car.

Ever wondered what would happen if you leave keys in the ignition of a really nice car in a really bad neighborhood? Bait Car explores this question, and the answer is usually something you would never expect: people steal the car, usually very quickly. Leave all your racial and classist stereotypes at the door. Just kidding, take them with you. Do not let go of them. This show is fueled by broad stereotyping mixed with the low expectations of an American public that should be asleep. It feeds the lowest common denominator of our basest instincts that tell us racist things like poor people need to eat. Also, car thieves’ alibis almost always involve a prostitute. That is their go-to excuse for why they stole a car. It usually doesn’t fit whatsoever into the framework of the story. Cops: “Why did you take that car when you knew it didn’t belong to you?” Criminal: “This girl with me is a prostitute” Cops: “You’re under arrest.”

Oh my god hold on one second. My custom-made Pandora station just started playing a song by an artist named Michael Moor… I was surprised that Michael Moore is also a recording artist. Then I read his full name: Michael Moorcock. The description says he was a singer in the 1970’s. There is a singer out there named Michael Moorcock. Why haven’t Michael Moore haters clung to this as firmly as they can? That’s to the Right what it would be like if I found out that there was a singer in the seventies named Ann Coultercock, and I am never ruling out that possibility.

Anyway, poor people steal things in order to live.

]]>https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/bait-car-the-downfall-of-our-empire/feed/1moldyboocarShareRemember high school, download O.A.R., kill yourselfhttps://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/remember-high-school-download-o-a-r-kill-yourself/
https://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/remember-high-school-download-o-a-r-kill-yourself/#respondThu, 03 Mar 2011 04:09:05 +0000http://recoveringobsessive.wordpress.com/?p=45]]>When your computer fails to connect to the internet for more than two minutes, you probably panic. You can’t get to Pandora, the luscious planet of endless music and hidden shame that had narrowed down your perfect station to only play the song Ohio (Come Back to Texas) by Bowling for Soup. Don’t judge me. You have an equally horrible song that you love and you would give anything to hear that song on a loop interrupted by McDonalds commercials. What? You don’t? Because Ohio (Come Back to Texas) by Bowling for Soup is the worst song of all time? Tell that to Almost by Bowling for Soup. Please. Tell somebody. I have to stop listening to these songs. If sadomachochism is defined as the combination of sadistic and masochistic elements in one person, characterized by both aggressive and submissive periods in relationships with others, then Bowling for Soup is the dominatrix in my own personal chamber of discordant musical torture. If it’s not, then http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sadomasochism is wrong.

So, during the two minutes of no internet, I turned to my downloads in order to listen to music. Luckily, I had downloaded an album a very long time ago. Even luckilier, it was by the most awesome band of all time: O.A.R. As a sadomasochist, I often confuse pleasure with pain, and pleasant melodies with downloading guitar tabs in high school of jam bands that I often look back on with misplaced admiration. So I start to play the album, and it’s the worst thing I have ever heard. Not only do I not remember what I liked about this music, I don’t remember anything about the music at all. This is partly because I had downloaded the wrong album. I was listening to a shitty album they released three years ago instead of the shitty album they released ten years ago. I know that the music that I’m listening to is shitty, because earlier I classified Ohio (Come Back to Texas) by Bowling for Soup as my favorite song of all time, and I still considered this bad. Try listening to Ohio (Come Back to Texas) by Bowling for Soup and then try to be happy for the next week. It’s impossible. I am angry all the time because I am constantly listening to that song and it is constantly refueling my hunger for McDonalds because either their guitarist is morbidly obese or because commercials for McDonalds are the only thing breaking the nonstop sequence of torture I inflict on myself.

Okay, I finally down voted Ohio (Come Back to Texas) by Bowling for Soup, and the first song that Pandora plays is Shattered by O.A.R. Pandora! Bad! This is actually happening as I’m writing this. Pandora is refueling my depravity by reading my diary and simultaneously integrating it into its repertoire of pain.